The Town Crier: Queens of the rodeo

Published 5:00 pm Saturday, September 2, 2023

Yip-ee-ai-oh-ki-A!

Get your cowboy hat out and polish up your boots, the rodeo is back in town. If you’ve got spurs, wear ‘em (just don’t accidentally sit on them).

The Dalton Pro Rodeo will be at the North Georgia Fairgrounds on Friday, Sept. 8, and Saturday, Sept. 9. The doors (gates? barn doors?) open at 6 p.m. and the action starts at 8. I haven’t been to the rodeo in town for several years but hope to make it this time around. With the cowboys and cowgirls roping and riding, this ain’t no video game. This is the real deal, pardner! Why watch virtual when you can watch actual?

The rodeo is hosted by 4L & Diamond S Rodeo and is sanctioned by both the IPRA (International Professional Rodeo Association) and the PCA (Professional Cowboy Association). and the word “professional” in the names of those two organizations lets you know there will be prize money.

Action, excitement, history and tradition

The events include team roping, steer wrestling, saddle bronc riding, cowgirl’s breakaway roping, cowgirl’s barrel racing, calf roping and bull Riding. As I once heard an announcer say at a rodeo, “In Mexico, they fight the bull; in America, we ride the bull!” I never rode a bull nor do I intend to, but having walked across some pastures in my day I once asked an old rodeo veteran how to stop a bull from charging. He said, “Take away his credit card.” Turns out he was a rodeo clown, which they will also have at the rodeo this year.

This is the 35th anniversary of this iteration of the Dalton Pro Rodeo, but different sponsors and promoters have been having the rodeo here for decades. In the 1970s and 1980s the Lions Club was the key sponsor. But all the way back to the early 1900s Wild West shows would come through town, which were a mix of rodeo, circus and pageant.

When you go to a rodeo you are seeing action, excitement, history and tradition all rolled up in one. and you see some pretty brave souls out there doing what they love. I feel certain rodeo events are not something you can just talk someone into, especially at a pro level.

One of my hi skool buddies went to a rodeo event where they had amateur events. He volunteered thinking it would be fun. He rode a calf. How hard can that be? Even if you fall off, there’s all that soft dirt to land on. Well, the calf threw him and he couldn’t believe how banged up he was. He limped for days and gained a new respect for real cowboys. Now, if he sees a rodeo on TV he shakes his head slowly and changes the channel.

4L was started in 1985 by champion calf roper and steer wrestler Charlie Lowry and they are located right next door in Summerville. Diamond S is out of Texas and the two groups teamed up, promoting numerous rodeos in the area as well as supplying the specialty livestock. Most of the roping, riding and racing horses are brought by their owners, who view them as close partners in the events they do. If you’ve ever seen a cowgirl barrel race you’ve seen a human and a horse operate as closely in tandem together as it seems two creatures can. They know exactly what the other is going to do and it makes for a heart-racing sight as the two swing in low and fast around the barrels, sprinting the whole way.

Rodeo goes all the way back to the 1500s in Mexico. An original rodeo was a type of roundup of livestock to brand them and get them used to humans, for cattle to get used to being moved around and for horses to be tamed. The idea of rodeo moved north into the U.S. in the 1800s and eventually they became an event and a competition between cowboys and cowgirls as well as the different ranches where they worked.

Gradually over the years various events have been included in the modern rodeo lineup. Generally, as rodeo grew, the whites, Blacks, Native Americans, men and women all participated. The limiting factor was if you had the entry fee.

Only one event in rodeo is credited to a single individual and that is steer wrestling, aka bull dogging. The method used was created by Black cowboy Bill Pickett. He developed a unique way to jump onto the steer and wrestle it to the ground. An agent signed him to travel around and demonstrate his talent. Other cowboys took it up and soon they started having competitions.

Lives as royalty

But enough about buckin’ broncos … I know what you want to hear about: rodeo queens! It just so happens the Town Crier personally knows two local rodeo queens and got them on the phone this week to tell of their lives as royalty.

Annette Pangle Daniel had never been on a horse when she decided to sign up for the scholarship Rodeo Queen pageant in 1979. A recent Dalton High School graduate, she had come in third in the Miss Dalton Scholarship Pageant and so decided to try again. It was a good cause since it was sponsored by the Lions Club. After surprising herself with the win, and grateful that horse riding wasn’t required to gain the crown, the day after the crowning she went to her friend who had a horse and rode and rode and rode until she was so sore she couldn’t walk.

To become the Rodeo Queen you had to do an interview since it was a scholarship program with a $500 prize. That’s quite a bit in 1979 dollars. She evidently did excellently in the interview, although she laughs and considers her luck tied to the red Stetson she wore. She wore the lucky red Stetson, a gift from her cousin from Cutter Bill’s Western World store in Houston, Texas, to the interview and again at the Saturday night rodeo where her outfit included wrangler jeans and a western shirt with little boots on it.

On the night she learned she had won and was crowned, the 12 contestants marched to the center of the ring during intermission. They announced her name as the winner and she was presented with a crown from the previous Rodeo Queen, as well as a sash and flowers. and don’t forget the applause. Prizes apart from the $500 scholarship included a gift certificate from the Economy Department Store downtown she used to buy new cowgirl boots, jeans, some other outfits and a savings bond for $50. She also got a photo sitting in addition to pictures in the paper.

The Lions Club treated her very well and among her duties for the year were attending Lions Club meetings, involvement in the Peach Bowl Queen pageant based on her win and repping the Dalton Lions Club at events like the Christmas parade and the North Georgia Fair. She also judged other Rodeo Queen contests and crowned the queen in Chatsworth back when they had the Wagon Train over the mountain. It turns out her future husband printed the rodeo program; before they had met, he called and told her they had taken a vote at the print shop and picked her as their choice for winner. They started dating and the rest, as they say, is rodeo history.

A bigger deal than she thought

When Annette passed the crown she passed it to Adrienne Corbin Monroe. Adrienne knew who Annette was and when she saw Annette’s picture in the paper she started thinking about participating and then her uncle said, “Why don’t you enter?” She laughed but the uncle kept after her.

Full disclosure, Adrienne is my first cousin and her uncle is my dad. I was away at college so didn’t know any of this was going on.

Adrienne saw Annette at a football game and Annette encouraged her. The Lions Club sponsorship made the rodeo an ongoing popular event with lots of support from the community. It was a bigger deal than she thought. When Adrienne signed up, some of her friends at school also signed up. There were about 10 contestants from a wide area who were all covered in the paper with a two-page spread. The more Adrienne was involved, the bigger, better thing she saw it as.

After the interviews, the young ladies went to the rodeo. There, Adrienne was announced as the queen, much to her surprise. Adrienne remembers the contestants rode around in a wagon at the rodeo. She knew about the scholarship money but there was also clothes from one of the nicer dress shops in town, a gift certificate from Davies Gift Shop and even a coupon for Rudolph’s Pizza. and at an event she attended as Lions Club Rodeo Queen at the airport, she got to ride in a private plane for the first time. She was nervous, but a good queen does her duty.

She said it was a great promotion for the town, publicity for the sponsors, as well as for the young women participating.

Adrienne didn’t realize how big a deal it was. She believes that Annette, as such a popular person around town, as well as a good representative for the Lions Club, raised the bar for those that came after. Adrienne believes Annette paved the way.

Dalton royalty. Yip-ee-ai-oh-ki-A indeed ladies.

Mark Hannah, a Dalton native, works in video and film production.